SUT Advice - Which Ones Are The Best?

Dear @itsjustme : " You think a gain stage, amplifying a 0.05-0.5mV signal by another 10-20X has no distortion? Do you realize how lower the power supply noise must be? "

To your first question I don’t posted " has no distortion " and for the second question yes " I realize " because I have first hand experience in the overall/whole design and manufacture of a top phonolinepreamp that today can compete bis a bis  CH, Vitus, SimAudio, Gryphon, Dan D’Agostino, Dartzeel, etc, etc and where no all tube unit including Lamm can't touch it.

"" also not convinced that the active stage is a no brainer. ""

As I said it depends of the whole design. Our phonolinepreamp is an active high gain SS fully balanced/differential true dual mono input to output, inverse RIAA eq. with measured deviation of 0.015db both channels ( includes a switchable Neumann corner. ), class A amp, non-feedback, four layers circuit boards, all input/output connectors soldered directly to the circuit boards ( no single wire here. ), external dual mono power supply and a third for the logic card, bipolar devices for the dedicated MC stages and FET for the dedicated MM stages, matched and hand selected active/passive parts, very wide overload margin, true low noise, a stand alone logic card with its own power supply, etc, etc, etc.

R.

I have both Ortofon T-20 and Ortofon T-30.  The T-20 (2ohms) is perfect for Ortofon MC20 mk-2 and I exclusively use it with it. The T-30 has a variable impedance selectable through a knob from 3-36 ohms (not continuous). Happy with both of them. I have used the T-30 with Dynavector 23R as well as Technics 305 and I find if you use the correct load the sound is not colored and frequency response is not affected. Thanks @jcarr for a scientific explanation. 

Correction. Ortofon T-30 is 3-48 ohms. 

Our phonolinepreamp is an active high gain SS fully balanced/differential true dual mono input to output, inverse RIAA eq. with measured deviation of 0.015db both channels ( includes a switchable Neumann corner. ), class A amp, non-feedback, four layers circuit boards, all input/output connectors soldered directly to the circuit boards ( no single wire here. ), external dual mono power supply and a third for the logic card, bipolar devices for the dedicated MC stages and FET for the dedicated MM stages, matched and hand selected active/passive parts, very wide overload margin, true low noise, a stand alone logic card with its own power supply, etc, etc, etc.

Wow, all that when a carefully matched step up transformer will meet or exceed a very expensive active stage.

There are different ways to accomplish the goal of raising a less than milli-volt signal to the input level that a MM phono stage is happy with. Some prefer a SUT like me and some prefer active gain stages like you.

A quality SUT will do the job very well and need not cost a fortune. Companies like Denon (Engineering firm and cartridge designers) and Cinemag (Altec Peerless based designs) have been around a very long time and have a proven track record. Look carefully at the specs, what deficiency's  are causing all these distortions?

I'm sure a high end active gain stage can perform well if properly engineered and manufactured with quality components. But for the price of that I can buy several SUT and cartridges. I also prefer to have a simple audio path, one passive component verses dozens of active components.

BillWojo

Bob’s SUTs are great for the money.
My favorites :- Thrax Trajan 
                         Ypsilon    
                         Auditorium     
                         Audio Note UK
                         Kondo Audio Note.
 You asked for the best, there you go.
All of those work with my Lyra Atlas Lambda SL.